Marvel released four titles in 2021: one is the best action movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; one is the fourth highest-grossing movie ever; one resulted in the film’s star filing a lawsuit against Disney (and made a ton of money); and one is Eternals.
Chloé Zhao’s sprawling follow-up to Best Picture winner Nomadland was a big swing and, depending on who you ask, a big miss. It’s the only MCU movie with a “Rotten” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, for whatever that’s worth, and while Spider-Man: No Way Home is up to $1.7 billion at the worldwide box office, Eternals is around $400 million. Leaving aside $400 million being a “disappointment,” that’s about where it will stay, as the film left theaters in the U.S. last week after making $164 million domestically.
As noted by The Direct, that’s the second-lowest domestic gross for any MCU movie. You can probably guess the lowest!
Chloe Zhao’s epic leaves theaters with a $164.9 million return domestically, $30 million more than Marvel Studios’ lowest domestic haul in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk ($134 million). Eternals also falls $60 million short of fellow fall 2021 MCU release Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which boasted $224 million at the domestic box office.
If you adjust for inflation, The Incredible Hulk‘s $134 million rises to $173 million… but maybe that’s unfair to consider since the Edward Norton-starring film wasn’t released during a global pandemic. In a “normal” year, Eternals would have likely made more — if only for the cameo at the end. Worldwide, it’s fourth from the bottom, ahead of Black Widow ($375 million, although the Disney+ numbers skew the total), Captain America: The First Avenger ($370 million), and The Incredible Hulk ($265 million).
Eternals wasn’t the hit that Marvel hoped for with such a star-studded cast, but everything’s fine. Marvel Studios will continue to pump out mega-blockbusters for years (decades?) to come, Kumail Nanjiani is still jacked, and Zhao is working on a “futuristic sci-fi western” about Dracula. It was all worth it for that.
(Via The Direct)